Game Systems
A lot of these are just standard rules, but I thought it would be best to compile a list of the relevant systems I intend to use. If you find that one you're interested in making use of isn't listed, let me know and we'll discuss it. World of Darkness Aggravated Called Shots A called shot to the head, using any kind of weapon or firearm, inflicts aggravated damage. An unarmed strike to the head still inflicts bashing damage, unless the character has some way to inflict lethal hand damage. Targeting the head imposes a –5 modifier. Armor Lists of armor and their effects can be found on page 170 of World of Darkness and on page 175 of Armory. Automatic Damage The damage modifier on a gun does not add dice to the roll to hit. Rather, the damage is applied automatically provided that the Dexterity + Firearms roll is successful. For instance, if a character with Dexterity 2 and Firearms 1 uses a light pistol (damage 2L), the player rolls three dice. If the player rolls one success, the target takes three points of lethal damage. If the character had been using a shotgun (4L damage plus 9 again), the player would still have rolled three dice, but with one success would have inflicted five points of lethal damage (the gun’s damage rating + number of successes rolled). Bleeding Out Any wound that causes at least two points of lethal or aggravated damage, and is inflicted by a firearm, blade, claw or any other source that causes deep tissue damage, begins to bleed profusely. The victim suffers one point of bashing damage each turn the wound is left untended. Bleeding victims can be stabilized with a successful Intelligence + Medicine roll, with a –1 dice penalty for each point of lethal damage caused by the initial wound. Bone Breakage Whenever a character rolls an exceptional success on an attack made with a blunt weapon or an unarmed attack, the player chooses one of the target’s bones from the list below and shatters it. The effects of the broken bone persist for the rest of the story. Rationale: Hey, bones chip, fracture, and shatter from a bad hit. Damage Details can be found starting on page 171 of World of Darkness. Dangerous Explosives Characters standing within the Blast Area suffer half again (round down) the flat Damage of the explosive, plus damage rolled. So, a character standing at point of origin for an explosive with Damage 4 suffers six automatic points of damage plus any successes rolled on four dice. Characters outside the Blast Area of the explosion still suffer the possibility of being hit by flying shrapnel and debris. Roll the Damage rating of the explosive against any character outside the primary radius of the explosion but still within half the Blast Area in yards (round down). An explosion with Blast Area and Damage of 4 rolls inflicts four dice of damage against characters within a 5–6 yard radius of the explosion. Degeneration This has a separate entry and flavor for each setting, but the basic rules can be found on page 91 of World of Darkness. Derangements These especially apply to any Changeling characters, although aren't required by anyone. You can find examples of Derangements on page 96 of World of Darkness, and if you read the whole section about Degeneration there are also a few tidbits of information to be found there. Equipment To purchase Equipment, you must have at least the same number of dots in Resources as the item you're attempting to purchase. If you're attempting to buy something that requires 4 or 5 dots, you will be required to roll Resources. Success means you acquire your purchase with no ill effects. Failure will cost you one dot of Resources. You can find examples of Equipment to buy starting on page 139 of World of Darkness, and on page 163 of Armory. Flinging Things The basics of throwing can be found on page 67 of World of Darkness. Using melee weapons as improvised thrown weapons is difficult because swords and axes aren’t balanced for throwing. If a character throws a melee weapon, the attack suffers a –2 penalty. Freezing Under Fire This only applies to mortals without a Supernatural template. Whenever a character is fired upon, the player must roll Resolve + Composure. If the roll succeeds, the character can act normally. If the roll fails, the player must spend a Willpower point for the character to act (this Willpower point bestows no other bonus on any rolls the player might make that turn). If the character has no Willpower to spend, for whatever reason, he freezes up. A character who has frozen up does not receive Defense during that turn. A “frozen” character regains control on his next action, or sooner if a comrade devotes an action to snapping him out of it. This does not apply to characters with the Combatant Merit. Ghosts and Spirits In the World of Darkness, ghosts and spirits are not the same thing. Ghosts are immaterial entities that were once living beings but are now dead, while spirits are immaterial entities that represent the animist expressions of the world. Ghosts normally inhabit the same space as the material world, yet are untouchable and invisible, in an ephemeral state of existence that magicians often call Twilight. The memories of objects also exist in Twilight, as the “ghosts” of buildings and heirlooms long gone in the material world. Ephemeral objects and beings are invisible and intangible to those without a supernatural power that allows them to see or touch. Spirits normally inhabit a space separate from the material world known as the Shadow Realm. The Shadow Realm lies on the other side of a mystical barrier that separates it from the ephemeral existence of Twilight. The Shadow Realm is a place whispered about in shamanic and animist beliefs, where the world is not the same as ours, but is perhaps the way our world should be. Some shamans might explain the Shadow Realm as the living soul of the material world. Sometimes spirits pass through the barrier from the Shadow Realm into our world, where they enter the same state of Twilight that ghosts occupy. Some ghosts and spirits have powers that allow them to affect the physical world, to manifest as apparitions of visible but immaterial essence or to even take solid form as materialized beings. Other ephemeral entities have the ability to enter other states beyond the physical, the Twilight and the Shadow Realm. The dead can sometimes pass beyond to the Underworld, one of the various strange places where ghosts go after death, although they rarely return. Spirits also may sometimes pass into other realms, including the dominion of dreams. Even if mortals may not follow, magicians may learn much from these immaterial beings. Many forms of magic that might affect ephemeral beings are limited to use on ghosts alone or spirits alone. A magician might learn a ritual to target ghosts, and later learn an alternate version effective against spirits, but each ritual would be of use against only one or the other. Other types of mystic power are effective with ghosts and spirits alike, due to their shared ephemeral properties. Some mystic rituals apply to only Twilight, while others can reach into the Shadow Realm. The former can affect only ghosts or spirits in Twilight, while the latter affect only spirits in the Shadow Realm. Healing Each supernatural template has its own methods of dealing with injury, but they all derive from the base rules. For mortals, Healing works as follows: Bashing: One point is regained in 15 minutes. Lethal: One point is regained in two days. Aggravated: One point is regained in a week. You can find more information about basic Healing on page 90 of World of Darkness. Increased Wound Penalties This hack changes the way that wounds affect characters. With five open boxes, the character suffers a –1 to all actions. With four, the character loses the ability to spend Willpower for heroic effort, but can still spend Willpower to increase Defense or Resistance traits (see p. 133 of the World of Darkness Rulebook). At three open boxes, the character suffers a –2 to all actions. At two open boxes, the character loses the 10 again benefit (if a weapon would grant the character 9 again, this still applies; a man armed with a shotgun is still dangerous, even if he’s injured!). Finally, at one open box, the character suffers a –3 penalty to all actions. Knife to a Fistfight When an unarmed character is attacked by someone wielding a melee weapon, the defender applies only one-half of his Defense (round down) against the attack. Merits or supernatural powers that add to Defense are not affected. Makeshift Stakes Intrepid vampire-hunters make their stakes beforehand. Stakes in this manner are weighted carefully and sharpened to as fine a point as the wood allows. However, such preparation is not always possible. Perhaps the vampire-hunter is caught unawares, or maybe the victim isn’t a vampire-hunter at all. Whatever the case, sometimes, one has to make a stake on the spot. Creating a stake involves little actual crafting, and instead requires simply breaking off a piece of wood from an existing object. A character might snap a table leg, a chair back or even a broomstick in half and use the sharp part as the stake. She might kick at it or try to break it in her hands. To do this, roll Strength + Stamina. Assume that the item’s Durability is 1 and has a Structure of 5. She must eliminate three of the item’s Structure points to break an effective stake. This requires a full turn (or more, if she was not successful the first try). The resultant makeshift stake is Damage 0(L) and Size 1; targeting the heart requires an exceptional success. No Fighting Styles Any character of sufficient skill can use the maneuvers listed for the Fighting Styles, whether presented in this book, the World of Darkness Rulebook, or other sourcebooks (such as World of Darkness: Armory). “Sufficient skill” in this case means a rating in the relevant Skill equal to the dot rating of the maneuver being attempted, and a Specialty appropriate to it. For instance, a character with three dots in Brawl and a Specialty in Boxing can use the Body Blow, Duck and Weave, and Combination Blows maneuvers listed for Fighting Style: Boxing on p. 110 of the World of Darkness Rulebook. Prerequisites do not apply under this rule. Objects These rules are more about handling and breaking things. If you want to know how hard it will be to crack a baseball bat in half, this is where to go. You can find details on how it works on page 135 of World of Darkness. Off-Roading Most ground vehicles are designed for use on well-maintained paved roads. When taking cars out of the highway department’s jurisdiction, drivers incur penalties to their Drive checks based on the type of surface on which they’re driving: –1 for dirt roads or grassy fields, –2 for gravel roads, –3 for sand or muddy fields and –4 for untamed wilderness. Light trucks, dirt bikes, mountain bikes, construction equipment and armored vehicles are better-suited than most to handle such abuse, so these vehicles’ penalties in such situations are reduced by 2. Radiation Poisoning Details can be found starting on page 122 of World of Darkness. Scalding and Burning Burning hot objects add a whole other realm of pain when employing impromptu weapons. What happens when a character grabs for a pot of boiling water, a sizzling skillet or a curling iron? First, a character making an attack with such an object does so with a –1 penalty that is taken in addition to the normal penalty associated with improvised weapons. Second, the item does normal bashing damage (unless the weapon is edged, wherein it does lethal) per the successes on the attack resolution roll. However, the item also causes first-degree burns, meaning the subject also takes a single point of lethal damage on top of any bashing damage suffered. If an exceptional success is made, two lethal points of burn damage are taken. Note that these items aren’t actually on fire, and don’t run the risk of igniting combustible items. Security and Traps Details can be found on page 179 of Armory. Shooting Through Cover Subtract the Durability of cover material from the shooter’s dice pool. For example, someone shooting at a target behind a pane of glass would lose one die from his pool, provided that he had a clear view of the target. If the Durability of the cover is higher than the damage rating of the gun, or if the gun does not use solid slugs (a shotgun firing birdshot, for instance), the bullets do not penetrate the cover and the target is unharmed. Bulletproof glass or armor piercing bullets provide exceptions to this hack, of course. The former operates at a higher Durability against bullets, while the latter ignores points of Durability entirely. Slower Healing This hack increases the time necessary for characters to recover from wounds. Healing time for bashing damage is now one point per hour of rest. Healing time for lethal damage increases to one week per point. Healing time for aggravated damage increases to one month per point. Getting stabbed, therefore, can easily take a month or more to heal to the point that the character is no longer inconvenienced. If damage “wraps” from lethal to aggravated, or if the character suffers some kind of supernatural attack, he can easily feel the effects for several months. Supernatural Terror Whenever a mortal sees a supernatural creature doing something that marks it as obviously inhuman, the player must roll Resolve + Composure. If this roll fails, the character flees the area immediately, and cannot return until the scene ends or some extraordinary circumstances compel him. For instance, a character might flee a fight when a vampire tears a man’s throat out, but return if he realizes that his wife was approaching the scene from the other direction and might run afoul of the monster. The Storyteller should modify the Resolve + Composure roll as she feels appropriate. An event that can be easily rationalized might receive a positive modifier (the vampire tearing someone’s throat out, for instance, might just be a psychopath — still frightening, but not supernatural). An overt and unmistakable event, though, should receive a negative modifier (a werewolf takes on its hulking half-wolf form and tears opponents apart). A player whose character has the Unseen Sense Merit receives a +1 modifier if the event in question is related to the Merit’s focus. Toughness Matters When attacking someone with bare hands, the attacker’s player subtracts the target’s Stamina from the dice pool, as well as Defense and armor. If the character is somehow able to inflict lethal or aggravated damage with an unarmed strike (using Fighting Style: Kung Fu 5, or a power than grants claws, for instance), this rule does not apply. Triggers These can apply to anyone who has a Derangement. Details can be found starting on page 82 of Innocents. Vehicles Details can be found on page 141 of World of Darkness and page 132 of Armory. Watch My Back Although being ganged up on can be deadly in the World of Darkness, having stalwart friends at your back can even the odds. For every ally within your reach, you ignore one point of Defense reduction due to multiple attackers. For example, if three of your friends are within arms reach during a fight, you can be attacked by up to four opponents before your Defense starts to drop on the fifth. Watch That First Step Characters suffer one point of bashing damage per six yards fallen. If the character lands in water at least six feet deep, no matter how far she fell, she takes half damage. In addition, landing in water or on a similarly soft, yielding surface downgrades the lethal damage from a terminal-velocity fall to bashing damage. Weapons Yes. Melee weapons can be found on page 170 of World of Darkness and page 16 of Armory. Ranged weapons can be found on page 169 of World of Darkness and page 48 or Armory. Tactical and Heavy weaponry can be found on page 100 of Armory. Werewolf: The Forsaken Arrathudum (Cursed Items) Details can be found on page 141 of The Rage. Awakened Spirits Details can be found on page 136 of Lore of the Forsaken Death Rage Details can be found on page 173 of Werewolf: The Forsaken. Degeneration Information about Werewolf flavors for derangements can be found on page 185 of Werewolf: The Forsaken. Drugs Any form of medication of recreational drug will have different effects on humans vs wolves. Details can be found starting on page 23 of Blood of the Wolf. Feral Defenses When a werewolf wears the war form, the near wolf form, or the wolf form, he applies the higher of his Dexterity or Wits as his Defense, like an animal. Fetishes Details on these helpful items can be found on page 204 of The Forsaken and on page 138 of Lore of the Forsaken. Loci Details can be found on page 260 of The Forsaken and on page 128 of Lore of the Forsaken. Lunacy This is the effect of seeing a hybrid form werewolf on a mortal. Details can be found on page 175 of The Forsaken. Mindless Rage When a werewolf enters Death Rage, it always makes all-out attacks (p. 157 of the World of Darkness Rulebook). This means the player receives a +2 to all attacks, but the werewolf also can’t benefit from Defense while in Death Rage. Regeneration Details can be found on page 168 of The Forsaken. Rites Lists of Rites can be found starting on page 147 of The Forsaken and on page 105 of Lore of the Forsaken. Shapeshifting Detailed information on the shifting of werewolves can be found on page 170 of The Forsaken. Silver The effects of silver on a werewolf can be found on page 169 of The Forsaken. Swift Killer Against mortal targets, a werewolf’s claws and bite inflict aggravated damage. If the target is touched by the supernatural in any way, the werewolf inflicts lethal damage. Tracking Details can be found on page 178 of The Forsaken. War Form Gamble As stated in Werewolf: The Forsaken, werewolves can only maintain their fearsome half-man, half-wolf war form for a number of turns equal to their Stamina + Primal Urge (+ their auspice’s favored Renown during their auspice moon phase). Under this system, that value is the base time a werewolf can remain in the war form reasonably safely. After that time has expired, the werewolf begins to risk Death Rage. Every turn past the time limit, roll the werewolf’s Resolve + Composure as a reflexive action. During the werewolf’s auspice moon phase, add his auspice’s primary Renown to this roll. Every turn, this roll suffers a cumulative –1 penalty. When the roll fails, the werewolf immediately enters Death Rage. Changeling: The Lost All In Your Head If a changeling has an ability (such as the Blessings of the Hunterheart or Gristlegrinder kiths) that allows her to inflict lethal damage, or provides a damage bonus, with unarmed attacks, she only receives that bonus when she attacks those who can see through the Mask (changelings and other fae creatures, ensorcelled humans, etc.) If she spends all of her Glamour to burn away the Mask, she receives the bonus against all opponents. Altering Magic - True Names * The first and most basic optional rule is that using the target of a Contract’s true name always works as the catch for any Contract that is designed to be used on a single target. True names cannot be used as the catch of any Contract designed to affect multiple characters at once. In addition, because the character is always assumed to know her own true name, Contracts that the character uses on herself cannot use this catch. * Pledges made using a character’s true name are more powerful and more binding. Changelings who swear pledges by their true names add +1 to any Adroitness, blessing or favor boons that are part of the pledge, gain an extra point of Glamour in any pledges to give or acquire Glamour and can substitute the use of their true names for the investment of one point of Glamour in any ensorcellment pledge. However, in addition to any other penalties associated with breaking the pledge, breaking a pledge made with his true name costs a changeling one dot of permanent Willpower. The character may later pay eight experience points to purchase this lost dot back, but it is otherwise gone forever. Pledges made using a character’s true name must always be said loudly and clearly enough that the entire pledge can be heard by the person it is being made to. As a result, making a pledge on his true name allows the person the changeling is making a pledge to learn his true name, which is often a price that is worth more than the pledge itself. Making such a pledge is an act of great trust or utter desperation for a changeling. Changelings who have on-going pledges sworn on their true names also cannot change their true names without either including the individuals these pledges are made to in any name-changing ritual or informing all of these people of the changeling’s new true name before the sun next sets. Failing to do this automatically causes the changeling to have broken her pledge. * One crucial aspect of increasing the power and importance of true names is to prohibit any and all Contracts or others supernatural abilities that allow someone to magically learn another character’s true name. The ability to do this allows powerful villains to easily learn the characters’ true names and also makes it far too easy for characters to learn their enemies’ true names. If true names provide great power, learning a powerful or important character’s true name should be an important and relatively difficult portion of any scenario. Efforts to learn a character’s true name can and should involve everything from careful spying to bribery to learning a minor villain’s true name and using this knowledge to force him to help the characters learn a more powerful opponent’s true name. Trickery, disguise, eavesdropping, bugs, blackmail and many similar activities should all be possible paths to learning someone’s true name. However, if knowing someone’s true name gives a character a great deal of power over that person, then learning her true name should never be as simply as simply using one Contract. * Changelings never use their actual names when dealing with anyone they do not implicitly trust, and many changelings implicitly trust no one. In addition, to prevent a look at the character’s birth certificate from making the process of learning a changeling’s name trivially easy, a changeling’s true name consists of his legal name at the time he was abducted and the nickname or “pet name” that his Keeper called him. Such nicknames can be anything, but are usually either insulting or ironic. Naturally, because of the nickname’s power and because being reminded of their Keeper is never pleasant, changelings rarely tell anyone these nicknames. Also, because a changeling’s true name in part consists of the legal name he had when he was abducted, changelings cannot change their true names by legally changing their names or by acquiring fake IDs. Changelings may be able to change their true names, but doing so requires a magical ritual and not simply a trip down to the local courthouse. * Learning the true names of vampires, werewolves, mages and similar supernatural beings requires learning their birth names and also the names they use in their supernatural community, such as a mage’s shadow name. Only by learning both names can a changeling use this being’s true name. The true name of a ghost is whatever name was placed on its tombstone, which could easily be different from its name in life. John Doe and Jane Doe are moderately common true names for ghosts. If a ghost was not formally buried, then that ghost has no true name. Distractions A changeling’s player can spend a point of Glamour to add the character’s Wyrd rating to his Defense for a turn. This is a reflexive action, and it does not work on other changelings or on ensorcelled humans. On-lookers have a hard time drawing a bead on the changeling; his form seems inconstant and shaky. Revelation in Pain Whenever a changeling suffers a lethal wound in combat, onlookers may roll Wits + Composure as a reflexive action. If the roll succeeds, the witness sees the changeling’s mien for a split second. Obviously, this hack doesn’t apply to changelings and other characters who could see the mien anyway. Sup on Agony If a changeling makes an attack that inflicts more damage than the target’s Stamina, or the attack marks enough boxes on the victim’s Health character to cause wound penalties, the changeling’s player can immediately roll Wits + Empathy to harvest Glamour as a reflexive action. Changelings cannot harvest Glamour from each other in this manner, though they can take Glamour from the emotions of other supernatural beings. Court bonuses do not apply. The Unassuming Mask When a changeling spends Glamour to reinforce the Mask, his player may make a reflexive Wits + Stealth roll along with his Initiative roll at the beginning of combat. If the roll succeeds, no character can attack the changeling until he takes an aggressive action (such as attacking, drawing a weapon, or using an obvious Contract). Other changelings and the True Fae may attempt a reflexive Glamour roll to attack the character normally. Mage: The Awakening All-Out Magic When a mage attacks with a spell, she can use the all-out attack rule to gain +2 on the spell-casting roll at the cost of losing her Defense until her next turn. This option can only be performed in combat, and only on an aimed spell. Law of Embodiment Details on this new merit can be found on page 77 of Tome of the Mysteries. Madness in Battle While in a fight, Sleeper witnesses don’t engender Disbelief or Unraveling effects, even if they see the effects of vulgar spells. The +2 to Paradox dice pools still stands, but only affects each mage present once. Magical Buildup Every vulgar spell cast in a combat scene adds a die to all Paradox dice pools, not just those of the mage in question. Example: A mage casts Destroy Object on an opponent’s gun. All mages involved in the fight increase their Paradox pools by one die. Vampire: The Requiem Animal Ghouls Vampires may take animals as ghouls. Dead Flesh Vampires do not suffer wound penalties except from injuries caused by fire or sunlight. Death by Stake According to Vampire: The Requiem, a wooden stake to the heart drives a vampire into a deep, deathlike sleep. For a more traditional take on the vampire legend, staking a vampire instead instantly destroys it. Hard Staking Staking a vampire is an extended action, as described in the sidebar on page 163 of Armory Reloaded. Hunter: The Vigil Alone A hunter in combat with one or more supernatural beings without the support of his cell suffers a –1 to all attempted actions. A hunter who is accustomed to working alone does not receive this penalty, but if he works with a cell for any length of time (long enough to learn a Tactic, for instance), the penalty applies from there on out. Group Courage If the Storyteller is using the Supernatural Terror hack (p. 158), a cell of hunters can make this roll as a teamwork action (p. 134 of the World of Darkness Rulebook). Squad Reflexes Members of a cell can reflexively notice if their companions have been injured, pinned down, run out of bullets, or are in some other dire situation. This requires a Wits + Composure roll, and this roll can be made as soon as the deleterious condition occurs. Strong of Heart For every one of her cellmates that is present, a hunter adds one to her Willpower for the purposes of resisting supernatural effects that depend on the victim’s Willpower score (for example, the Lunacy invoked by seeing a werewolf or the Quiescence that causes mortals to forget incidents of vulgar magic). Category:Rules